i guess i know why i am getting hate mail. they want me to change my mind. well it is working. i am having a hard time with this decision as it is. i just want my website to be enjoyable. enjoyable for myself to work on that is. i don’t want to get a ton of mean emails cursing me out and telling me they will never visit again. i don’t want all these hurtful comments. it is making me want to give up on the whole idea and just put up a place for donations. and i definatly am having a lot of trouble making myself divide the cams up into member/pay. i havn’t gone near that section because i just can’t bring myself to. i know that most people would not bother joining my site if i don’t change over the cams to the point where they were actually missing out on something by not being a member. but i don’t want anyone to miss out. i have never been in this for money. this is just so hard. maybe i should just try to keep paying for everything. maybe i should just change the gallery back to normal and offer a few special sections to people who donate anything over $10. sigh. |
Stvlive.com
I don’t go to your site or most of the websites to sit and look at the cams. Yes, it brought me to your site and several others but what keeps me coming back is reading about you, your feelings, your disappointments, your achievements, your happy times, basically your life. I think alot of you and I check in on you to see how you are doing. You are a very nice and good person who I want nothing but the best for. The struggles you are going through about this pay/membership deal shows that you care so much about other people too. Just give it a try! you definitely need the money. 🙂
if I join a site it’s usually not for what I’m getting as a member, it’s more that I like the person and want to support what they’re doing…that’s why I joined Ana’s members site. But I dunno if everyone is like that.
One thing you could do is offer something for different levels of donation…like a cafepress tshirt for $10, or an archive CD of pictures for $20…that’s what ee from eecam did when she was trying to raise money for a mobile cam.
{{{{{{{stephmonkie}}}}}}}}
i already have cafepress shirts. they cost $10 to make so i make anything over that amount. i charge $5 so that is how much i make per shirt. no one is buying them. i need to change some of the desgins
dunno about the cd’s cause danny is the one with the burner
Different Options
Why don’t you try the donation thing for awhile? It’s obvious that you care very much for other people… just as other people should care for you. If they care, as they should, they’ll be happy to donate whatever they can. This will show who really *cares* about you, and who is just taking your generosity for granted.
I have just started going to your site recently… and I am very impressed. Aside from the cams, it’s obvious that you pour a lot into it… and that counts for something. I know that if I were to show up at your site and see a link for voluntary donations… I would sure as Hell click on it 😉
-M
if you feel unsure about it maybe you should try the donation fee first. then if that doesn’t help you out go for the pay site.
This may be a taboo subject, I have no idea – but is there a reason you won’t consider advertising on your site?
i just hate ad banners. they don’t fit into my site. i would only post them if i was allowed to design them. otherwise i would just continue to pay for everything myself.
Stephanie …
About a week ago I sent you some info on a program with which I’m involved that you could use to leverage the traffic you get on your site. They have many “canned” banners, but you can also design your own (like the one I did for my Eschaton site … the animated one just below “enter”).
I assumed that you weren’t interested when I didn’t hear back from you, but it is another path to consider if you’re looking for ways to fund your site without going to a member deal.
Best,
– Brendan Tripp
i don’t remember getting that email… can you send it again? thanks!
why not do it a little at a time
hey there… goodness… what a hard decision to make. Why not try doing pay classes first. Classes for HTML and photoshop tips, and general graphic design tips, and if that doesn’t bring in a little extra $$, then look at other options. 🙂
You don’t seem very happy with having to make the decision to make part of your cam site members only, so why not save that to the last option, when nothing else will seem to work. 🙂
And then maybe just streaming could be members only, or just the archives, or just the photo sets, ya know! There are lots of options, you shouldn’t have to be forced to do what you don’t believe in just for the sake of money. That sucks, and it’s partially what’s wrong with this world. (not you, just being forced to do things that we whole heartedly don’t believe in for the sake of getting by). Have you tried being associates through amazon and stuff? I get about 300 dollars ever quarter just for devoting one page of HTML and links to books that have to do with the classes i offer on my site…
I hope things work out
much wuv heading your way
Re: why not do it a little at a time
i have had an amazon associates thing for quite a while. i make maybe $20 from it every 6 months. it is on another site of mine though…
Funny movie.
In The Big Hit, Melvin Smiley (Mark Wahlberg) says that he can’t stand the thought of anyone not liking him–that’s why he can’t break up with either of his girlfriends and his coworkers are always ripping him off. What’s funny is that he’s a hitman, so another character is spot on in saying, “What about all the families of the people you’ve killed? I bet they don’t think that much of you.”
Moral: Do what you have to do. Some people will appreciate it and others won’t. In the end, you’ll be happier with yourself and your decisions. And when your friends frame you for kidnapping and come gunning for you, you’ll luck out and survive cause you’re the cute one. Wait, that’s not right….
Example…duh.
I just thought of it, look at the example of Brad and LiveJournal. We all still stand by him, yeah?
Re: Example…duh.
yeah! (except those losers who keep writing him thinking they can’t use livejournal if they don’t pay up or that it’s their “right” to have a free livejournal just b/c it was free in the first place)
Re: Example…duh.
Hey, I haven’t heard of this. I was wondering how I could help these guys. Can’t imagine the cost to them. Can you tell me more.
Yeah sure.
Brad has made the decision to put banner ads at the bottom of most of the pages to help pay for server fees. If you want a “bannerless journal” and special extra features, you can subscribe to LJ by clicking here.
Re: Funny movie.
AHH I LOVE THAT MOVIE! lmfao.. =p
when i ran animecam i got tons of really MEAN hatemail – sometimes i would sit and cry because all i was doing is try to make myself and everyone happy and it seemed like no matter what i did someone was still upset with me.
dear you are wonderful – and you dont NEED those people – and they were never “true friends” if they have to sit there and write mean things to you. when you do become pay or whatever you decide to do you will get my $20 – and many other who feel that you are a wonderful person. i honestly never much go to your site, or watch your cams…i dont watch cams period, but if i know that it would help you out – then i’ll join. *speaking of which i need to go give spooky my dues too* – because in the end that is what it is about, not a few bucks, but helping someone out.
*me 2 cents*
cloei
thanks, you are a sweetie 🙂
going pay
the fans will stay, the bums will go. ignore the nay sayers, and charge!
i almost never go to your very well designed site, i prefer to read your posts here. (the cam thing really kinda spooks me; i don’t know, watching people sitting around watching tv…what fun is that?)
perhaps the whole cam thing has run its course; the design and writing of your site are the real attractions; just take the damn cams down, and post the occasional still shots.
just some ideas; you have enough strees with the new abode.
Hatemail
I run a little thingie(not a cam site) on the net with about 6 hundred people. People were really rude about a ton of things when changes were made a few years ago. Needless to say, I was really hurt by it. Somewhere along the way I knew I wasn’t going to please everyone all the time, and I couldn’t try to do so and stay happy myself, too.
For the really rude people, I was strong and told them that if they weren’t happy they could give constructive ideas, or go elsewhere. They could talk in an adult, non- harrassing manner, or they could go elsewhere. Hard to do at first, and I thought there would be a backlash..but people stopped being jerks when I included them, but let them know that I needed to do things my way, too. If I hadn’t done so, they would still try to walk over me today. :p
I also posted little guidelines to let new people know what to expect or not expect from their very first visit. That helped out a lot, too.
The grumpies stand out more than the people who are appreciative. I already plan on subscribing as soon as you are all set up for it. =)
eek
i dunno if this is how u feel or not, but back when i had some other sections on my page, i constantly got told “you need to update this” or “update this now” blahblahblah. i have my websites to make other people smile, yes, but they’re for me. they’re mine. if it starts to feel like you’re making decisions about your site and running them just for other people and it isn’t even a part of u anymore, what’s the point?
if u wanna go pay, if it is what u think is right for u and your site, do it. 🙂 i think what u r doing reallie does show how selfish a lot of viewers r. goodness, u only made a few sections pay, there r a gazillion other sections for the whiney people to look at, do they not realize? :b
meanies suck.
i’m so sorry to hear that youre still being inundated with hateful emails. i will run out and buy the first email prog that includes not only a spam filter, but a hate filter. anybody who has anything nasty to say should be *forced* to look at the person in the eye while they say it. or at least to read their email aloud to themselves before they send it. it’s a desensetizing medium, but i’m not here to rant about that.
i just wanted to know that whatever you do i want to help, membership, donations, selling tshirts (*aside* if you do ever re-design…is black an option?)…i feel that what you do is so worthwhile that i am proud to be able to support it in any small way. i totally respect and admire that you host your own server. i think that is the coolest thing…and yeah it costs *a lot* of money.
so add my voice to the “stef is wonderful, stv is wonderful” side. it’s unfortuante that i and others could send you 10,000 emails a day each expressing this a subtly different and nuanced way and the one meaniehead who says “you suck,” utterly absent any profundity would still stand far, far out. but do try not to let you bastards grind you down. you are on a different level of evolution. 🙂
kite.